A PERSPECTIVE ON "VALUE-CENTERED" EDUCATION1
+ RUSSELL GOUGH +
Assistant Professor of Philosophy
Humanities Division
Pepperdine University
"Man finds himself inevitably in the value-centric
predicament,
because the very rejection of value judgments is itself a
value judgment."2
D. Elton Trueblood
To begin with a crucial point on which I shall also
end: I hope and pray that the issues currently being
discussed concerning the nature, method, values and goals of
the Christian university never become dead issues. These
matters can be quite emotive if not incendiary, and
frustrating to be sure, but they comprise the elan vital of
our very existence as Christian institutions of higher
learning.
Concerning such issues, perhaps you have overheard
remarks from well-intentioned, exasperated colleagues, such
as, "We've been through all this before" and "What's the
use? We never seem to reach any agreement anyway." As a
prelude to this essay's main theme of values, consider the
following brief, twofold response to such remarks. First, I
suspect that there is much wider, substantive agreement
concerning the Christian university's core, constitutive
values than the remarks above suggest. Second, questions
such as "What does it mean to be a 'Christian' university?"
and "What are Christian values?" are moments of an essential
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and unending process of institutional self-examination.
As Socrates could have said, the unexamined university
is not worth sustaining. In my own words, when Christian
universities, as educational institutions, cease to examine
their very reason(s) for existence, they cease to be
institutions that are truly educational, not to mention
Christian, in the truest sense of the terms.
2
I.
What is meant by "value-centered" education? First, it
will be helpful to focus on the ambiguous, slippery term
"value(s)."3 Unfortunately, it is currently used to
describe so much that it describes very little. Its meaning
was once clear and its use limited. "Value" meant the
relative worth of a thing; the worth in question was mainly
economic or quasi-economic.
Beginning in the nineteenth century, however,
philosophers such as Nietzsche began to take the notion of
value and values in a much broader sense, enlarging it into
a general theory of value that included economics, ethics,
aesthetics, politics, and education. This broadened usage
subsequently spread to psychology, the social sciences, the
humanities, and even to conventional discourse. Importantly
for present purposes, this widespread usage retained from
its simple economic usage the assumption-now very often
covert-of relative worth, i.e., the assumption that nothing
really has "objective" value.
This assumption in large measure is responsible for the
myth of value-neutral education, which contends that our
world is one of bare facts, that empirical knowledge bears
no intrinsic relation to moral or social values, and that
value judgments are purely relative expressions of
subjective feelings and preferential attitudes. Facts,
then, are said to be value-neutral, and education is
concerned with facts, not feelings and attitudes.
3
But of course schools which profess value-neutrality
are imparting values under the guise of imparting none. All
institutions-educational or otherwise-are value-laden.
Indeed, language itself is so value-laden as to render
value-neutrality nearly impossible. The question,
therefore, is not "Should we teach values?" but, "Which
values should we teach?" In this regard, I would suggest
that Christian educators reject the modern university's
ostensibly value-free and tradition-free environment. We
should make it clear that, as educational institutions, we
are overtly value-laden and tradition-dependent.4
Moreover, given that the rhetoric of value-neutrality
is misleading at best, and given consequently that all
educational institutions are in fact value-laden, it still
remains to be seen what it would mean for a university,
specifically a Christian university, to offer a
"value-centered" education. Technically speaking, the
phrase is redundant: all forms of education necessarily
involve specifiable values, i.e., beliefs, attitudes,
virtues, or behaviors which are seen as better or best
suited for the purpose of realizing some obtainable goal or
striving for some unattainable ideal.
It is precisely here that we encounter semantic
difficulties with the term "value" or "values." Notice that
the preceding conventional definition of "values" contains
six distinct terms which themselves are often denoted by the
single term "values." The term is used to describe beliefs,
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attitudes, virtues, behaviors, obtainable goals (e.g., his
values of familyhood), and unobtainable ideals (e.g., her
value of being Christ-like), among others.
We clearly cannot equate "values" with one and only one
of these terms, as some writers have suggested. For
example, Hunter Lewis, in his recent and widely read A
Question of Values, contends at the outset that "values"
should be synonymous with personal beliefs.5 But if it is
that simple, I find it a bit ironic that he didn't title his
book A Question of Beliefs, which surely would be less
confusing. This last statement is meant to be taken
seriously, for consider the nakedly obvious redundancy in
the expression "belief-centered education." Unless one
qualifies "belief-centered" with some substantive adjective,
such as "Christian" or "Marxist," the term seems utterly
superfluous.6
It is true, however, that the redundancy is less
obvious, perhaps covert, in the expression "value-centered
education." But this much is clear: the term "value" is
more slippery, often packed with more covert ideological
assumptions than any one of the six aforementioned terms.
To repeat an earlier point: "value" is used to
describe so much that it describes precious little. But an
important caveat is in order here, for this point belies the
covert and powerfully influential ideological and political
usages of the term. Consider especially the plural,
concrete noun "values," as in "her values," "American
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values," and "Christian values." Whether for an individual
or for a group of individuals, more often than not this
usage suggests a system of values, a Weltanschauung, a
picture of the way the world is and should be, an ideology.
II.
Lest the reader think that by speaking of systems or
ideologies I am attempting to paint the term "values" as
necessarily dark and sinister, I will offer two timely and
significant provisos. First, I would suggest that the
intimate connection between certain uses of the term (like
"American values" or "Christian values") and an underlying
system, worldview, or ideology should not surprise us nor
bother us.
But what should bother us are any institutions which
impart moral values-an ethic-under the pretense of imparting
none. All institutions are value-laden. It follows that
all institutions have a specifiable ethic; it may be covert
and unacknowledged, but it is there. And it is crucial to
recognize that all ethics, even non-Christian ethics, arise
out of a tradition that depicts the way the world works-what
is real, what is worth having, and what is worth believing.
For example, to preclude religious belief, personal or
otherwise, from the classroom is not an example of so-called
value-neutrality, nor is it "objective" pedagogy; it is
instead a subjective value-judgment informed by a particular
value-system, worldview, ideology. In my view, an important
conclusion to draw here is that there is no objective
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knowledge apart from a tradition's worldview or ideology
that sustains it.7 Therefore, just as the question was not
"Should we teach values?"; but: "Which values should we
teach?"; so also the question is not "Should we impart
'objective' knowledge?"; but: "Which view of 'objective'
knowledge should we impart?"8
Second proviso: philosophically speaking, it is easy
for me to see why many do not care for the term "value(s)."
I believe the term is much more confusing and obscurantist
than it is helpful. I would prefer, in fact, to eradicate
the term from our moral vocabularies altogether. But, of
course, such a preference is unrealistic, if not impossible,
given the term's widespread usage in both its vernacular and
academic milieus.
III.
Suppose, then, for the purpose of describing
effectively what it might mean for a Christian university to
provide a "value-centered" education, I were to distinguish
the following senses of "values": (1) a system of values,
as in "Christian values," implying a framework of
ideological assumptions; (2) core values, referring to
particular foundational principles or presuppositional
beliefs which undergird a system or framework; (3) values of
conduct, designating specific mandates for behavior; and (4)
idealistic values, describing unattainable desired ends.
(In spite of these seemingly helpful distinctions, the
reader is again asked to notice the obvious superfluity
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involved, for the noun "values" adds nothing to these
concepts. Why not just talk in terms of worldview or
ideology, core beliefs or presuppositions, rules of conduct,
and ideals? Again, it would seem that "values" confuses and
obscures more than it enlightens.)
Since values rhetoric is so embedded in our
vocabularies (or, I might add, until we as Christian
institutions agree upon some clearer mode of discussing
these issues), I will continue to use the term with the
distinctions I have suggested. It seems to me that the
crucial sense here of "values" is that of core values.
Discussions I have had with various faculty and
administrators on these matters always seemed for one reason
or another to center on or ultimately fall back on the
notion of core values. I suspect that many of us who are
involved in Christian education use the expression
"Christian values" as I have defined core values: as
presuppositional beliefs which undergird an ideological
framework.
Of course, an all-important and delicate question still
looms unanswered: precisely what are these core values,
these presuppositional beliefs which undergird the Christian
university's ideological framework? First, notice a couple
of things which they are not. They are not trivial mandates
for behavior, what I earlier described as values of conduct.
We certainly do not want to equate core values with rules
concerning drinking, smoking, and sexuality, important as
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such rules may be.
Nor, for that matter are core values to be identified
with any specific denomination's theological tenets or
doctrines. This assertion need not be inconsistent with my
earlier claim that a Christian university is
tradition-dependent. For this tradition, as I see it, can
be (or is) twofold: the Christian tradition, in general,
and a denominational tradition, in particular. The upshot
here is that what I will identify next as the core values of
Christian universities will by and large be values shared by
both the general and the particular tradition of a given
Christian university.
What, then, are these core values?
I do not believe they are that hard to find. Nor do I
believe they are as incendiary as they might seem, at least
not prima facie. I suspect that many of us may only have to
look as far as the early pages of our school catalogs. For
example, on page 4 of Pepperdine's catalog, on a page
entitled "Pepperdine University Affirms," I would suggest
that the first three affirmations listed, "That God is,"
"That He is revealed uniquely in Christ," and "That the
educational process may not, with impunity, be divorced from
the divine process," are core values of this institution. I
am not sure that the three constitute an exhaustive list,
but certainly they are irreplaceably foundational for any
adequate conception of a Christian educational institution.
I would suggest further that the other (six) affirmations
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(e.g., "That the quality of student life is a valid concern
of the University," or "That spiritual commitment,
tolerating no excuse for mediocrity, demands the highest
standards of academic excellence"), as well as Pepperdine's
infrastructural rules and guidelines, reflect beliefs,
attitudes, goals, and ideals-in short and loosely, values-that
issue out of or follow from the core values.9
It is of utmost significance that these core values,
these presuppositional beliefs, do not lend themselves to
precise and systematic analysis or method as regards
Christian education. The ways of remaining faithful to and
consistent with them are varied and many. Thus, talk of a
right way and a wrong way regarding methodology or
implementation can at times not only be on very precarious
ground, but can also be completely inappropriate, given the
inherent generality of these core values. I would humbly
suggest that Christian educational institutions of higher
learning should seek to appreciate fully the wonderfully
gray area of liberty that is involved in such over-arching
generality.
IV.
To come full circle with the point on which I began, I
will describe what I see as two central characteristics of
any model of "value centered" Christian education: dynamism
and idealism. It is dynamic in that it is an on-going,
never-ending process. We should not expect to find a
once-and-for-all static picture of the Christian university,
10
a picture replete with a precise cataloguing of specific
"values"-for, of course, such a picture does not and should
not exist.
What importantly does remain static are our core
values, for they are the ultimate criteria against which we
judge competing ideas, methods, and behaviors. I asserted
earlier that there is no objective knowledge apart from a
tradition's worldview or ideology that sustains it. Every
institution-educational or otherwise-reflects a tradition that
depicts the way the world works, what is real, what is worth
having, and what is worth believing. The Christian
university's view of objective knowledge, then, in part
consists of our specifiable core values. These core values,
and thus our view of objective knowledge, places the
Christian university in stark contrast with most other
contemporary educational institutions. Therein lies one of
our most important uniquenesses. As an institution we are
openly and admittedly coming from somewhere in particular.
So is every other institution, philosophically speaking,
although many of them are coming from somewhere under the
guise of coming from nowhere.
The second characteristic, idealism, describes long- or
short- range goals which might not or can not be perfectly
realized, but which nevertheless must be faithfully pursued.
At Pepperdine, for example, we are attempting to provide a
"student-centered" education and a "value-centered"
education in an overtly Christian environment. Goals such
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as these imply a commitment to the total development of the
student, nurturing more than just the student's intellectual
capacities. These lofty aspirations, of course, echo
classical views of education such as Plato's, who observed,
"If you ask what is the good of education, the answer is
easy-that education makes good persons, and that good persons
act nobly." Such a conception presupposes a view of what it
is to be a good person, and such a view is objectified by
the tradition, educational or otherwise, that sustains it.
Further, as Aristotle later suggested, a good person-a
well-educated person-is one who is properly trained in both
the intellectual and moral excellences. So any view of what
it is to be a good person-a well-educated person-involves a
particular ethic replete with assumptions about what is
good. It may seem that I have digressed for a moment, but I
am in fact as centered on the main issue as I have ever
been.
Recall the lamentable picture of contemporary American
civic psychology portrayed six years ago by Robert Bellah
and four younger colleagues in Habits of the Heart.10 The
authors concluded that most Americans' inner lives are
stunted by an inability to conceive any goal larger than
individual achievements, possessions or experiences. Moral
traditions that once supplied broader allegiances, such as
biblical religion, are losing their influence, and nothing
is taking their place. Further, they contended that the
exclusive pursuit of self-interest, however enlightened,
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cannot sustain a complex, interdependent society. Where
there is no vision of a larger, common good, they reminded
us, people perish.
The classical view of morality recognized over-arching
goods and goals. It involved a philosophical vision of what
it was to be a good person, in an idealistic sense, and
sought to identify those means which would best enable one
to strive for that goal. In short, the classical view
provided a context for meaning and purpose which Habits of
the Heart laments is increasingly absent in contemporary
society.
Regarding what it might mean for a Christian university
to provide a value-centered education, I want to suggest
that the Christian university is a relatively small yet
powerfully influential community that provides such a
context for meaning and purpose. In its dynamic, on-going,
self-examining process of becoming the best Christian
university that it can be, it should do so while unabashedly
identifying, and offering as objectively real and true, its
core values. As Elton Trueblood has written, "A Christian
college is one in which the Christian perspective is
accepted openly, avowedly, and unapologetically."11 We
should relish the task of asserting our assumptions and
their over-arching framework in the marketplace of competing
ideas. We must remember and combat the great myth of the
View from Nowhere, the view that "objectivity" means coming
from nowhere in particular. Such a notion is theoretically
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and practically impossible. All education is
value-centered. We should overtly offer our core values as
truest and best.
I hope it goes without saying that clear and emphatic
avowal of our worldview and of our core values does not
imply forced indoctrination. The Christian university's
core values are the bases of education and freedom of
inquiry in the highest and richest senses of those terms,
for all truth is God's truth no matter where it is found.
Our attitude emphatically should not be that we have arrived-
intellectually, morally, or, for that matter, theologically.
Christian higher education should be the epitome of a humble
yet relentless search for truth and a humble, unending quest
for moral and intellectual excellence.
References
1I am indebted to Lorie Goodman Batson, Tom Olbricht,
and Richard Hughes for their helpful suggestions on an
earlier draft of this paper, to Lydia Reineck for comments
on the present paper, and to Richard Hughes for inviting me
to present these ideas as part of a colloquium on "The Idea
of a Christian University" at Pepperdine.
2D. Elton Trueblood, "The Concept of a Christian
College," in Faculty Dialogue, 14 (Spring 1991): 27.
3I have followed here the description of "value" as
given in The Encyclopedia of Philosophy (New York:
MacMillan Pub.), Vols. 7-8, pp. 229-30.
4My claims involving value-neutrality, (the myth of)
academic "objectivity," and tradition-dependence, of course,
require much more development, but I will, for present
purposes, assume them to be true. There are several authors
who have defended these claims in depth to which I would
refer the reader. Most notably I would mention the writings
of the moral philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre (to whose
tutelage I am greatly indebted) and the moral theologian
Stanley Hauerwas.
5Hunter Lewis, A Question of Values (New York: Harper
and Row, 1990), p. 7. He writes, "Although the term values
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is often used loosely, it should be synonymous with personal
beliefs, especially personal beliefs about the 'good,' the
'just,' and the 'beautiful,' personal beliefs that propel us
to action, to a particular kind of behavior and life."
6I am not sure, though, that this proviso helps all
that much. Why not simply say, for example, "Christian
education"?
7Again, readers familiar with the writings of MacIntyre
or Hauerwas will notice my obvious indebtedness to them.
See especially MacIntyre's Whose Justice? Which
Rationality? (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press,
1988).
8Though these claims may seem to lend themselves to
relativistic conclusions, I do not believe my position
necessarily entails moral relativism.
9Concerning comparisons and contrasts drawn between
these core values and civic values (e.g., American values),
I would caution against any attempts to set up unbridgeable,
radical disjunctions between Christian values and civic
values, if for no other reason than that many of us who
teach in Western Heritage programs spend a great deal of
time emphasizing the profound debt which contemporary
culture owes to Christian thought and practice. Certainly
Christian ideology and civic ideology collide with
earth-shattering force at times, but it still remains to be
seen precisely how and in what ways the Christian
university's core values are congruent or incongruent with
the values of the civitas.
10Robert Bellah et al., Habits of the Heart:
Individualism and Commitment in American Life (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1985).
11Trueblood, op. cit.: 29.
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